How to sell without a list...

There are many ways you can make money as an affiliate without a list...

I'm going to post just a few because I have to head out, but this topic could be awesome if we get start getting some people's crazy ideas on things they have tried that worked for them :-)

First off, a lot of these methods only work if you know the product is going to be around a while because some of them can be time consuming... nonetheless they work and should be used even if you have a list to maximize your profits, but you want to know that the company you're with isn't going anywhere...

The way I look at it is you want links. That is the bottomline... you want links that lead back to the product. The best way that I use is to do this is to buy a domain name that is similar to the product you're promoting. Say you're promoting Anik Singals Affiliate Classroom, you would buy a domain name www.howtobecomeasuperaffiliate.com and have that page redirect to www.affiliateclassroom.com wit your affiliate ID attached.

You can also get a simple link cloacker, but I like to do it this way because at any point when you start getting traffic to those links you can set up a squeeze page and start collecting emails from traffic that's on auto-pilot.

So what do you do with this link?

You post this link like you would with your own website. Write useful articles promoting Affiliate Classroom and attach YOUR url to that, make blog posts, forum posts, add it in your sig file, the list goes on and on...

If you'd like to take a different approach and have everything on your site then check out an article by Anik at:

http://www.marketingsource.com/articles/view/2199

There are tons more ways to go about promoting without an email list (although having one does help)... so let's hear everyone else's strategies on this...

To your success,
Sam

Also for those willing to spend a little money...you can advertise your affiliate domain with a squeeze page on adwords and overture.

You can use this method to build lists, and pay your ad cost with sales from the product. The trick is before you spend a lot of money, do testing. Make sure your capture page (squeeze) has a good optin rate, and that the affiliate program you are promoting converts.

Using the example that Sam provides, you could use VERY related keywords like Anik Singal, affiliate classroom, or if your gutsy even a competiting keyword like affiliate inferno.

I may be more cautious of this in the "IM" market due to saturation, but I do know that it has worked well for me in the past other non-marketing related niches.

That's an awesome point Jeffrey! Thanks for posting that ... if anybody has any questions about that and how to do it effectively please post because that is a great way to build a list without a product or any JV partners even...

The cool thing about this method is you create sub-lists ... I'm going to use IM as an example even though it's a tough market, but if you do this for copywriting, affiliate inferno, driving traffic, etc. those would all be seperate lists and you can then set up an autoresponder series targeted towards those lists where you give them quality info on copywriting and then suggest ANOTHER copywriting course because not everyone of them is going to buy the product you referred them to.

Thanks again Jeffrey!

Sam

I agree with Jeffrey that putting a squeeze page up is a great way to test and build a list at the same time. Anyone in the forum that wants a quick and free tool for cranking out these squeeze pages, refer to the link in my signature below.